Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I wonder if he was not behind the initial horrid words she overheard to begin with, the first day she discovered what a domestic dilute was. I wonder if he did not use Isabella for his own ends. She was certainly bold to act against an alpha’s mate.
“I’m doing this for your own good,” he says. “I love you, brother, and I can see this situation more clearly than you can. To earn the favor of the fates, we must offer appropriate sacrifice. She needs to die. Then you’ll be free of her, and the pack will be cleansed of her tainted blood.”
I realize in this moment that it’s never going to be over. They’re never going to accept Kira. They’ve undermined her so thoroughly, she can never be a part of the pack.
“Let me do it,” he says. “Let me put her out of her misery.”
“Get out of my way. Stand down. Accept your place as beta. You are acting unacceptably, and we both know it.”
“I’m the not the one fucking a Russian whore.”
Every man has his limit, and every alpha knows his breaking point. As I reach mine, all anger fades from me. I know what must be done. And I know I will do it, because there is no alternative. Free will is an illusion in this moment. This moment feels fated. Inescapable. Love couldn’t stop it from coming. Careful decisions could only delay it. My brother has decided to stand against me and the woman I love. He has turned my position into a prison, and my love into a lever with which to yank me this way and that.
It ends now.
I put Kira down very carefully.
I shift.
I attack.
CHAPTER 15
Kira
There’s blood fucking everywhere. I have seen dogs fight before, and I saw Cain deal with my cousin Colton, but what’s happening now is a fight to the fucking death. The snarls and growls coming from both brothers are beyond feral. They are ferocious and terrible, and they are frightening.
I am far too vulnerable in my human form, so I shift, the change coming over me in a moment of desperation and fear. We are all animals down here with nothing to save us from our own brutal instincts. Cowering in the corner, I feel hot splashes of wolf blood spattering over my nose and fur.
Cain’s fury is biblical. His jaws tear flesh, snap bone. This is what it looks like when an alpha reaches the end of his tether. I am not witnessing a fight. This is a straight up murder.
Cain is killing his own flesh and blood for me, for my freedom, for my safety. For everything he always said I deserved, for everything he has tried to give me and failed because these wolves would not allow it.
It is done quickly, and the sights I see as it is done will never leave me. I will see them when I close my eyes, when I sleep, and sometimes for no reason at all.
We flee, the two of us coated in his brother’s blood. I am in shock, and I think he is too. What just happened was the most brutal thing I have ever seen in my life.
We run for a long time, first in our wolf forms, then in human guises. After seeing what I have seen, I feel as though I am more animal than human. The human form I used to mistake for being my true self now feels like a costume I put on from time to time.
Abel has stashes of cash and supplies already planted to allow him to escape a bad situation when necessary. We collect and use those to get as far away from the Pacific Northwest as possible.
He will not speak of what he did in the dungeons. We hire cars, drive them for a while, then swap them out again. We spend only cash. We change our hair color, our clothing style. We are running as fugitives, because that is what we are.
Desert flashes by the window. The windows are down and hot air is blustering through the interior of the car, playing with discarded wrappers from gas station food. Cain is beside me, his beard grown out half an inch, his eyes covered by big sunglasses. I wouldn’t have thought a billionaire could go incognito this easily, but once you cover his eyes, Cain Lupin looks just like every other tall chisel-jawed man with dark hair.
“I am sorry about your…”
“Don’t,” he says coldly. “We will not spare a word for him again.”
I shut my mouth, and I grieve for all Cain has sacrificed for me. I was supposed to be the monster, but he became the original beast for me. He has given up absolutely everything, and there is no way for me to ever make it up to him.